On daughters and fathers.

Blogroll, Film Photography, Picture a day

An inevitable consequence to enjoying photography is that about 95% of all pictures taken by me are of people. In particular, of two people. I have very few pictures of myself (think LinkedIn profile picture for example – looking good, representative, but a bit edgy at the same time. Mission impossible.) and almost none that I could look at without cringing. Well. This post is a short tribute to those two special people and to that great bond they have – and to all other great dads there are.

Why am I posting it? Well I don’t know, these two are so damn cute, that is the first reason – she would never rest this peacefully in my arms. Also, you can totally feel the affection. The pictures are only from the past, I don’t know, two months, taken with a point-and-shoot camera on the go (totally not staged) and yet we get all the colours of love. The simpler the tool (camera), the more I’m enjoying using it and the better results I get… (ok fine I could have got rid of the dust).

Bless you.

WHAT IS THAT SOUND.

Blogroll, Film Photography, Finland, nature

The other day – before the major mess-up – I was hanging out laundry on the balcony. For a change it was sunny outside (albeit windy). And suddenly I noticed this soothing, almost ASMR-like, sound. For a moment I could not place it and then it struck me: it was the sound of rustling leaves. Something I had not really heard in half a year and something I already got used to since this happened. So now when little L. asks me whether the summer has already come, I can with a clear conscience say Yes, m’darling, this is summer.

PS. Apparently there is an umbrella term for sounds of the wind in the trees: psithurism. You are welcome.

Peace.

Blogroll, Lifestyle, photography, Traveling

Tomorrow the summer starts officially as we just reached the end of the school year. And it is bittersweet for me – I absolutely love the light and lush verdure and the memory of the freedom to uninterruptedly do things that one really likes to do for two months. And, indeed, it is only a memory of the times, smells, tastes and feelings that I will never experience again.

Turtledoves cooing, birds singing, circular saw buzzing. Hot donuts for breakfasts and eating lunch cold. That big pot of cherry compote. Turning book pages with fingers sticky from berries. Walking, thinking, feeling. Warm evening talks with whoever. Rough bark, sticky city centre and the smell of chlorine from the swimming behind my nails. The chill on the skin when entering grandmas house on a hot summer day. I miss those days, I miss experimenting with freedom, feeling nature against my body and I miss being a teen grand-daughter.

I tried to recreate at least some of these sensations with the help of a three year old. Almost, but not quite yet.

Shortly on Naantali and Härmälä gorge.

Blogroll, Finland, Picture a day, Traveling, Turku

I will be really brief when it comes to telling you about Naantali, a traditional spa-town close to Turku. It is what a spa-town should be like – cosy, small, touristy and close to the water. Nowadays most tourists come to Naantali to take either a fake steam-boat cruise or go to the Moomin theme park. We were not interested in either, just walked around and visited the tiny and somehow unimpressive museum.

But Naantali, that is off-white, lace and beige. Wood and cobble stones. Sea and ice-cream.

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And then I HAD to go and visit the Härmälä gorge, ie. a big crack in rock. It was great to walk/crawl through it, but impossible to take decent pictures due to an impossible angle – camera lens combination. If you want to know more, take a peek here. I would definitely recommend to visit if you are around Turku, and please do so during some unpopular times as the crack might get crowded during summer weekends (and totally empty in winter). Mass tourism, hey.

The sunniest place in Finland.

Blogroll, Finland, Pampas, Picture a day, Traveling

Is in Österbotten, more specifically, it is the town of Vaasa. It quickly became one of my top towns in Finland, and yes, it should be the place which receives the most sunshine in Finland. I only spend there a day and did not take any pictures, just used the sun thing as a click-bait.

Nah I did take some pics, like these from the Edvinin puisto – Edvin’s park, a smallish recreational park filled with amateur scrape metal sculptures just like these:

The following batch of photos, in fact, is taken in Närpes, where our tomatoes and cucumbers and flowers grow, and to where large quantities of immigrants move to work. So this would be the most representative photograph of the area:

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Another interesting sight would be these church stalls – yep, over 120 wooden stalls for the church visitors’ horses. They were in surprising good conditions, although I cannot really think of a good way to use these. One stood open so I took a peek – and it was empty, then I tried to spy in the wood cracks and none of the stalls seems to be in any kind of use at the moment…

A couple of Swedish miles (one Swedish mile = 10 km) away from Vaasa I drove and walked around the coast line. It was great as usual, I mean this blog is over-flooding with blue-green landscape sceneries and boats and alike.

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While in Närpes I also visited Kristinestad a bit – a tiny picturesque town with a historic centre and the curious Carlsro museum. The wooden villa (which is not electrified by the way) belonged to a certain Carlström, local tradesman and ship-maker of the late 19th and early 20th century. The business did not go that well in the end and he shot himself in 1910. To cut the long story shot, the villa stood abandoned for some time and deteriorated accordingly and was sold in an auction in the early 1960s for close to nothing to a local weirdo. The idea was that in the worst case he could use the building material as fire wood, but fortunately, he did not do that, instead, he filled the villa with all kinds of old/antique/strange/novelty/curious objects. It really is crammed with random stuff! Well, come and see for yourself, the piles of pots, books, dolls, mirrors, shoemaker accessories look particularly interesting in the omnipresent gloomy dusk…

… while the house itself is really fresh and inviting on the outside …

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… for the most part at least.

And as you can see from the pictures, the sunshine was abundant, so there is something to the sunniest-place-gossip!

We have leaves. Updated.

Blogroll, Finland, Helsinki, Lifestyle, Traveling

On the trees, also a slight sunburn on the shoulder, the 4th place in the ice hockey world cup and I’m terribly sleepy.

I will just leave this summerly pictures hang in here and add some commentary later. I’m sorry, I have an early start tomorrow again 😦

Have a pleasant start into the brand new week!

Update 25.5. – here are the comments 😉 The first couple of pictures are from a walk around the Rajasaari island. It is located in Töölö, so reasonably central and quite fancy, but it is in a shameful state (not reflected in the pictures). Covered in trash, boating stuff rusty snowmobiles and generally neglected. The dog park is awesome though, and so was the warm spring evening.

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The following takes are from Open House Helsinki – my top visits took place in Thursday and Friday and I was unable to attend. But on Saturday we made it to the Villas of the Valtiosaari island. These largeish, in some cases opulent (think luxurious sauna and a tennis court) wooden villas are mostly owned by the city of Helsinki and occasionally rented out to companies or registered organisations. You can imagine what this means: most of the villas stand empty and slowly deteriorate. Well managed! The whole island would make a lovely place to live – should we have a boat – but we were all surprised how messy and neglected the island was.

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A well-painted Finnish lion in one of the villas.

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This is a hydroplane hangar actually.

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Tiled stove detail.

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The summer church/chapel.

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We got a free boat ride to the city centre! That was the best part of the trip, minus the sunburn (I KNOW.), but look what we saw on the way: a sailboat nursery!

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The last picture is from Porkkala, see the tower on the right? That’s a lighthouse I’m so much visiting soon!

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Va(a)sa and Ostrobothnia.

Architecture, Blogroll, Finland, Lifestyle, Pampas, Traveling

A large part of my fieldwork takes place in Ostrobothnia – around the towns of Va(a)sa, Jakobstad, Karleby and similar. And the region quickly became one of my favourite places in the world; I’m not going to beat around the bush, to a large extent I would attribute this to the large percentage of Swedish speakers and their culture present…

… or it just could be due to the fact that I actually met with and got to talk to really friendly people;) but hey, the landscape (especially the rural areas and Kvarken archipelago) and urbanscape is worth a visit!

First a few shots from the town of Vasa… the very city centre is dominated by concrete. But there is a lot of wood and history just outside the centre.

As the destiny wanted I found myself at Stundars open air museum one night. It was closed for public and beautifully lit by the setting sun.

And of course I was criss-crossing the urban areas, mostly around Malax municipality:

(I totally love the following shot:)

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One lovely day I had some spare time to kill, so I decided to take a short trip to Strömsö – to get the glimpse of perfection. For those outside of Finland, Strömsö is the name of this Finnish-Swedish show for people loving their homes. You will find all kinds of interesting recipes, instructions and home-improvement tips. The show takes place in the- yes, Strömsö masion – just off Vasa, and the whole point of the show is that… that nothing ever goes wrong on the show. You will get 30 minutes of perfect living in a beautiful old wooden house (and a modern sauna and a modern shed with all kinds of tools and equipment where all the project shootings take place – #CHEATING!). And witness the making a lot of unnecessary decoration items… Home bliss!

And of course I had to share the beauty of pampas (Österbotten) with V. – and we decided to spend a calm evening in a Fisherman’s house (for real) in Molpe, Malax. The largest part of the trip went to visiting the Bergö archipelago and picking lingonberry. Amazing. Peaceful. Smelling and feeling great.

On the way back to Helsinki we passed – accidentally almost – village of Harrström. And it was a pleasant visit, despite the rain! We visited the windmill – the largest functioning wooden windmill in Finland, and it was so AWESOME. I mean I never got to see the windmill from inside. The experience felt so genuine – last visitors before us visited the mill in late July, there was dust and mouse droppings and middlings and other objects typical for… uhm… milling wheat, duh. Sounds gross, but it was awesome. So was the bridge built in 1898 (and still in use) and the whole vibe of a sea-near village. Definitely worth a visit should you be driving along the coast.

It was a lot of fun – and so has this week been as well. I enrolled in a weaving course and I think I found a new hobby. Want to see the result of my week efforts? Check out my instragram! (@milleristine)

And most importantly, take good care of yourselves. Life is way too brittle.

Savonia.

Art, Blogroll, Finland, Lifestyle, Traveling

I realised that I would probably burn out of life if I skipped all the travelling, walking, exploring, sitting in the car and observing the landscape. I know it is one of the thickets clichés out there, but travelling inspires me and calms me down so much. We went to Savonlinna this time to see La Bohéme by Teatre Regio Torino and it was awesome; the theatre group was unforgettable, the venue (Savonlinna castle) magical and the company great. Oh and we did take a little walk around the centre; it is not beautiful, but it is somehow genuine. Little businesses, market square where you could actually buy local produced goods – oh and the town is totally empty on Saturday nights!

The cultural life (opera) after that was neatly confronted with the wilderness of the archipelago and the summer cabin life. Small municipalities, a lot of water in all its elements. Green, lively and giving.

And in the end we had to stop in Parikkala and check out the local statue park. I guess everything has been said about the park and its father, local artist Veijo Rönkkönen – all left to say is that… try imagining walking onto one of those concrete statues in winter (note the teeth, eyes, etc.!).